Thailand's military government has introduced a new strategy to curb the insurgency that has rumbled on in the country's jungle-blanketed south for more than a decade: DNA swabbing.
The police chief that the junta put in charge of the southern provinces bordering Malaysia, said DNA samples have now been taken from more than 40,000 people, making arrests and prosecutions easier.
Attacks by Muslim Malay rebels across the restive region have dropped by more than 50 per cent.
Resistance to Buddhist rule in the south spilled over in 2004 and, since then, more than 6,500 people - most of them civilians - have died in violence, including shootings and bomb attacks.
Successive governments have failed to quell the separatists.
The Muslim Attorney Centre in the province of Pattani says security-related charges this year are already set to exceed those of 2014, in part because more DNA evidence is being used.
Last year 37 people were charged in the province while in the first four months of this year the number was 22.